The refurbished Gundel Restaurant has reopened, welcoming guests with iconic dishes from Hungarian cuisine.
The revamped Gundel
In May 2021, the Eventrend Group took over the running of the world-famous Gundel and Bagolyvár restaurants, after which the refurbishment of Gundel’s interior could begin, resulting in the creation of the restaurant on the gallery and the café area.
The refurbished interior of Gundel is based on the slogan ‘back to our roots’, aiming to create a space that both pays homage to Gundel’s golden age and, at the same time, ensures that it remains open at all times of the day, for every occasion, to the widest possible range of guests.
During the refurbishment, the focus was on three main areas: the garden, the indoor café and the restaurant area. The garden is expected to open in the spring, and further details will be announced at that time.
Two-thirds of the interior has been transformed into a classic café space, with small, tablecloth-free café tables, little lamps, plenty of plants and a wealth of memorabilia. There is even a period-style young lady’s carriage standing in the middle of the café, where Gundel’s own all-female orchestra plays all day long, performing 15-minute musical sets every hour.
On the café stage, a beautiful mahogany Petrof piano will provide the background music.
The defining atmosphere of the interior is the Art Nouveau world of plant and animal forms and imagery, the many fan palms (as was also the case at Gundel back in the day), the eosin blue and eosin green colours, and a sense of exuberance, cosiness, lightness, accessibility to all and closeness to nature. The restaurant is situated on the raised section of the interior; its back wall is adorned with a beautiful, bespoke 60-square-metre wallpaper design inspired by a zoo jungle.
Gundel cuisine
There was no need to write the Gundel menu – its backbone has been in place for 80 years. The dishes are based on the finest Gundel traditions, the centrepiece of which is the ‘Nemzeti11’ – the eleven iconic Gundel dishes that can be regarded as the most important part of Gundel’s heritage.
The 11 dishes of the National Cuisine: Tokaji with goose liver, Goulash soup, Palóc soup, Újházy chicken soup, Chicken Paprikás, Feszty sandwich, Mangalica pork Bakony-style, Fogas Kárpáti, Somlói Galuska, Gundel pancakes, Rákóczi cottage cheese cake.
As well as the Nemzeti11, the menu naturally features many other breakfast dishes, one-pot meals, salads and, these days, international dishes too. You can order fried eggs with Mangalica ham and sourdough bread, or a truly exquisite Viennese cutlet – Wiener schnitzel.
The Gundel is both a café and a restaurant, where you can pop in from 9 am for a coffee, breakfast, a good chat or a business meeting, whatever the time of day. Digital nomads will also feel right at home here, as they are very welcome guests. The musical atmosphere is provided by an all-female band, who play from a genuine, period-style ladies’ carriage. The café offers a full hot food menu, featuring salads, snacks, starters, soups, a very extensive selection of desserts and the unmissable ‘national11’ menu. They also serve ‘Afternoon Tea’ throughout the day.
In the evening, next to the café, the restaurant area opens on the gallery, where we serve dinner guests classic Gundel dishes on beautiful Zsolnay porcelain, with silver cutlery and an aristocratic table setting.
Head chef
Just as Károly Gundel staffed his kitchen with the most highly qualified professionals, who were careful not to overshadow the Gundel name, so too does the Eventrend Group strive to ensure that the Gundel chef can represent the Gundel legacy in a manner befitting its stature.
That is why the choice fell on Viktor Moldován, a great enthusiast of classic Hungarian cuisine and a highly knowledgeable young chef who ran a Hungarian restaurant in Japan for 14 years, during which time he mastered the highly disciplined and precise Japanese work culture and and work organisation. Someone who keeps beigl, Bácska-style rice and meat, and chicken paprikash on the menu 8,500 kilometres from Budapest has proven, through his actions, that he is a true lover of Hungarian cuisine.
Viktor Moldován is assisted in his work by András Wolf, one of the corporate chefs at the Eventrend Group; in fact, the two of them lead the kitchen team. They are supported in their work by chef János Kovács and pastry chef Györgyné Dudok.
